
University Education 
for Women 



Presidential Address delivered to the Education Society, 
Manchester University, on 21st November, 191 2 



BY 



MRS. HENRY SIDGWICK, Litt.D. 

Late Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge 



MANCHESTER 

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1913 

Price Sixpence Net 



Manchester University Lectures. No. 15 



1Hm\>er8it\> Ebucatfon for 
Women 



Sherratt & Hughes 

Publishers to the Victoria University of Manchester 

34 Cross Street, Manchester. 

33 Soho Square, London, W. 

Agents for the United States 

Longmans, Green & Co. 

443-449 Fourth Avenue, New York 



University Education 
for Women 



Presidential Address delivered to the Education Society, 
Manchester University, on 21st November, igi 2 



BY 



MRS. HENRY SIDGWICK, Litt.D. 

Late Principal of Newnham College. Cambridge 



MANCHESTER 

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1913 



* 



V 






r 



The Uses of University Education for 
Women 

Presidential Address to the Education Society, 
Manchester University. 

The subject on which I propose to address you this 
afternoon concerns mainly the uses of University Educa- 
tion for women who are not obliged to earn their own 
living. The use of University Education for women who 
are intending to take up professions for which University 
Education directly prepares is of course obvious. But 
new and more general considerations arise when the 
question of entering a profession is itself an open one, 
and for parents at any rate the problems involved are not 
always easy of solution. 

I am not sure that before I begin I ought not to 
apologise for choosing as the subject of my address one 
that is perhaps more interesting to myself than to you, 
and that in some ways concerns parents more than teachers. 
I have, however, had very little to do with the education 
of children, no experience of teaching in schools, and 
hardly any of teaching at all; but, on the other hand, I 
have, as you know, done a good deal of work in helping to 
provide educational opportunities for women, and especially 
opportunities of obtaining University Education, and I have 
seen a good deal of young women passing through a 
University, and to some extent have been able to follow 
their careers afterwards. So reflecting that you would 
hardly have done me the honour of electing me your 
president in order to hear from me views on subjects with 
which many of you are necessarily better acquainted than 
I am, I will apologise no more for talking about my own 
subjects, and will at once try to discuss the advantages 



6 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 

which girls, including those whom parents may reasonably 
hope to leave independently provided for, may derive 
from University Education. Incidentally this will lead 
to some consideration of women's work generally. 

To begin with there are obviously two sides to the 
question. We must examine, on the one hand, what the 
Universities offer, and, on the other, what women want or 
ought to want before we can decide how far the two 
coincide. 

John Stuart Mill, speaking of University Education in 
1867 in an address at St. Andrews University, which 
produced a considerable effect at the time, said that a 
University " is not a place of professional education. 
Universities are not intended to teach the knowledge 
required to fit men for some special mode of gaining 
their livelihood. Their object is not to make skilful 
lawyers, or physicians, or engineers, but capable and 
cultivated human beings." If this were strictly true, 
and if our actual Universities succeeded in any reasonable 
degree in carrying out this ideal, there could surely be no 
question that all men and all women whose circumstances 
made it possible should seek a University Education. It 
must be right for all to be, as human beings, as capable 
and cultivated as their opportunities allow. 

But it hardly seems that Mill's view of University 
Education was completely in harmony with the facts even 
at the time it was put forward; and the development of 
University Study in the generation and a half that has 
elapsed since his address was delivered, has been in the 
opposite direction. At the age at which students now go 
to the Universities, the necessity of deciding on a profes- 
sion, if they are to enter one, and of preparing specifically 
for it has usually come so near them that they cannot 
reasonably be expected to neglect the need of special 
preparation for after careers in the pursuit of general 
culture, and accordingly Universities in these days offer 
courses specially adopted for doctors, lawyers, engineers, 
farmers and so forth — not that they usually profess to 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 7 

turn out the complete professional man, but they aim at 
giving him the general principles of his branch of work 
and the knowledge required for an adequate grasp of these 
principles. The definitely professional aim of University 
study is somewhat obscured by the fact that for two very 
important vocations for which University education 
prepares — that of transmitting knowledge to others either 
as schoolmasters or mistresses or as University teachers, 
and that of advancing knowledge — there can be, so far as 
the acquisition of knowledge goes, no special course. 
Each student preparing for these careers will follow the 
path or paths of knowledge in which he hopes to lead 
others, or which he hopes to carry on further. 

That the University is understood to give professional 
education more than general cultivation appears clearly 
when the suitableness of University education for women 
is being discussed. For the question is constantly raised, 
and quite reasonably raised, how far any University 
course is suited to prepare for the domestic callings, for 
which so many women are destined. To this question I 
will return later, but let me first guard against a possible 
misunderstanding. I do not mean to suggest that the 
Universities have abandoned or are intending to abandon, 
the ideal of making their students capable and cultivated 
human beings. On the contrary, I am glad to believe 
that this ideal is steadily maintained and even pursued 
with increasing earnestness and ardour in our Universi- 
ties, notwithstanding the irresistible tendency to the 
development of professional studies. I hope that they 
will never cease to aim at producing that intellectual 
grasp and width of view which Mill regarded as their 
chief object. But it is more and more recognised that 
they have to produce it in most cases, not by teaching to 
any one individual a wide range of subjects, nor by teach- 
ing the same subjects to each individual, but by teaching 
him in the right manner those which, with a view to his 
future career, it is especially necessary for him to know. 
The subjects must be largely selected with a view to 



8 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 

professional needs, but the spirit in which they are studied 
by the academic teachers and, under their influence, by 
the students, may be and should be an essentially liberal 
spirit. The best teachers are inspired by and endeavour 
to communicate a love of knowledge for its own sake, and 
they will never lose sight of the importance of developing 
the intellectual faculties. 

At a University too the student is brought under the 
influence of other students studying other subjects and 
especially of teachers in close communication with 
teachers of other subjects; and more important still he is 
placed in an atmosphere where the mere acquisition of 
knowledge is not the sole object, but the advancement of 
knowledge is an important part of the work of the place. 
It is in these last respects, perhaps more than in any 
others, that the University differs from the merely pro- 
fessional or technical college or institution. Hence the 
student par excellence, whose sole aim is knowledge for its 
own sake without arriere pensee — without thought of the 
use it is to be in enabling its possessor to win prizes, to 
earn a livelihood, or even to make himself more useful in 
practical work afterwards — will always be specially valued 
in a University worthy of its name. Such students are, 
we may say, a leaven, helping to leaven the whole lump 
with a truly academic spirit. In this spirit all earnest 
students may and ought to share, whatever their duties 
and capacities ; but the number of those who can afford to 
pursue knowledge alone, with entire singleness of aim and 
concentration of effort, must, from force of circumstances, 
always be comparatively few. 

From this preliminary consideration of what Univer- 
sities provide let us turn to the other side of the question — 
what it is that girls want or that we want for them. 

Speaking, quite generally, we shall all agree that we 
want every woman's life to be effective. We want her to 
be happy herself and to take her full share in making 
others happy, in helping on the world's work and leaving 
it if possible a little better than she found it. We should 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 9 

further all agree, I think, that for most women marriage, 
provided it is marriage to the right man, offers the best 
prospect of carrying out our ideal in the most satisfactory 
manner. But here the difficulties begin. We cannot 
choose marriage as we choose a profession, and we know 
that as a matter of fact a great many women, especially 
in the upper or professional classes, do not marry. It 
would be beyond the scope of the present paper to enquire 
why this is so, and any complete answer would involve a 
somewhat difficult statistical investigation. It is some- 
times attributed simply to the surplus female population 
which, we know from the census, exists. But this will 
not I think fully account for the number of women who 
do not marry, and I suspect, though it could only be 
proved by investigation, that the high standard of living 
compared with the smallness of many professional incomes, 
leads men to abstain from marriage. I do not think that 
disinclination to marriage in the abstract exists to any 
large extent among women ; nor am I inclined to attribute 
to them any undue reluctance to marry on small incomes. 

In any case, whatever the cause, the fact is certain that 
there is for most young women of the more educated 
classes, a dual and entirely uncertain outlook — life with 
marriage on the one hand, and without it on the other — 
with only a limited power of choice in the matter. It is 
true that even for those who do marry there is usually an 
interval of grown-up life to be filled up before marriage, 
while there is also the possibility of an early and childless 
widowhood, so that some portion of unmarried life may be 
looked forward to in almost all cases, but a few years 
before marriage is of course a very different thing from 
lifelong spinsterhood. We have to consider then to what 
extent the same preparation is suitable for both women 
who marry and those who do not, and this partly depends 
on what we think women ought to do if they do not marry. 

It would now, I think, be generally admitted that 
parents who cannot leave their daughters a sufficient 
fortune to secure them comfortable independence would be 



10 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 

neglecting their duty if they did not provide for placing 
them in a position to earn their own living. But the mere 
question of earning a living is not the only one, and it 
seems to me that all women, including those for whom 
earning is not a necessity, ought to have an independent 
career apart from marriage. I think so partly because 
nothing can be more depressing and demoralising than 
merely waiting for the marriage which may never come; 
it is bad for women physically, intellectually and morally ; 
and moreover nothing can be more apt to lead to unhappy 
marriages than the temptation to marry merely for the 
sake of a career. But I also think that society has a 
right to expect that women, unmarried as well as married, 
should take a share in the work of the world — I am not of 
course speaking only of work for which the workers are 
paid, but of useful work of all kinds — and the women 
themselves have a right to the kind of happiness which 
can only come from work, and a sense of filling a useful 
place in the world, and which they cannot have if con- 
demned to the position of mere idle drones. 

I suppose that all sensible parents, whether able to 
leave their sons well off or not, look forward to their doing 
useful work in the world — either in a profession or in 
business, or in politics, or in some other way — and 
endeavour to educate them accordingly. The same view 
would naturally be taken about girls were it not for the 
dual outlook of which we have spoken and the different 
relation of professional work to marriage in the two cases. 
A man's professional career is not cut short by marriage ; 
indeed his marriage usually makes the earning of money 
more necessary; but a woman, if she marries, often, per- 
haps generally, finds it best to give up her profession at 
least for a time unless she can carry it on in a kind of 
partnership with her husband, partly because she must 
adapt her times and places of work to his, and partly 
because, when babies come, the demands on time and 
energy made by domestic life are often incompatible with 
professional work. 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN n 

Under these circumstances it is not unnatural that the 
advantage of serious preparation for professional work, 
preparation involving expense and effort, should some- 
times seem doubtful both to parents and daughters. The 
expectation of marriage is apt similarly I fear to affect 
the quality of many women's work in all classes and make 
it less thorough than men's, for as the future career of 
women depends on the whole less on the excellence of 
their work than the future career of men does on theirs, 
an important stimulus and incentive is absent for women, 
or at least weakened. 

If hesitation to undertake systematic preparation for a 
career of usefulness were due to reluctance to spend money 
or to idle love of pleasure alone, it would have little claim 
on our sympathy. But since for women marriage is itself 
a kind of profession in a sense which it is not for men, we 
have to ask whether systematic preparation for a career 
independent of marriage is a good preparation for mar- 
riage. I believe that it is. I do not merely mean that 
the special preparation for other careers is as likely as 
anything else to prove a good preparation for married life ; 
though this seems to me eminently true of the preparation 
for such professions as teaching, medicine, or nursing. I 
mean also that the qualities, apart from affection, which 
make a good wife and mother, are mainly moral qualities, 
or such intellectual qualities as may be cultivated in 
almost any relation in life — good sense and general intel- 
ligence — and which serious and steady preparation for 
any useful work will certainly aid in developing. It 
seems to me clear therefore that until she knows she will 
marry, every woman should consider how her life apart 
from marriage can be most profitably spent and should 
prepare herself accordingly, and that in doing so she will 
be preparing herself to meet the future however it may 
develop. I am not disposed to draw a distinction in this 
respect between those women who in order to maintain 
themselves independently must earn their livelihood, and 
those who are not under a similar necessity. All should 



12 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 

equally regard themselves, and be regarded by their 
parents, as bound to do the best work which their talents, 
tastes and opportunities fit them for. It follows that the 
question of going to a University or not, for all who can 
afford it, should chiefly depend on what that work is to 
be and whether study at a University is the way to prepare 
for it. 

At this point some of my hearers may wish to raise the 
question whether in selecting her work a woman of 
independent means is justified in taking paid work. We 
do not hear of doubts on this point in the case of men, but 
they are often expressed in the case of women. There is 
an assumption that the amount to be earned by women 
in the aggregate is limited, and that this should be divided 
not among those who can do the work best, but among 
those most in need of the money. This is treating 
women's work as of the nature of relief work. Any 
portion given to a woman who could live without it is 
assumed to be taken from those who need it for their daily 
bread. There is surely confusion here between the prob- 
lems of production and distribution. If we look at the 
matter in a broad way we see that all useful work done 
adds to the wealth of the world. Those who do not work 
are in effect supported by the rest, and the larger number 
of idle people there are the less new wealth is there to go 
round. This is only obscured in the case of persons of 
so-called independent means by the fact that they are 
living on the accumulations of previous generations. 

No doubt the number of workers needed in some 
particular field may be limited, and when workers are 
increasing there may be difficulty for some in finding 
work till new fields are opened. If, for example, the 
demand for teachers were to cease expanding, the profession 
might become overstocked. But teaching is highly skilled 
work and work requiring for its highest development 
special talents. It is for the world's advantage that those 
best fitted for the work should enter the profession, and 
this cannot be determined by a poverty qualification. It 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 13 

lowers any profession if it is entered with no motive but 
gaining money, and this must tend to happen if only those 
who need money are allowed to enter it or stay in it. No 
one would push the theory so far as to say that a woman 
with literary genius should refrain from writing or pub- 
lishing if she had enough to live on without doing so. 
This would be too obviously absurd. The hollowness 
of the theory can also be shown by applying it to the case 
of men. Take the case of salaries to members of the 
House of Commons which that House has recently decided 
to pay. Would any of us say that it was wrong for a 
man to offer himself for election if he did not need the 
salary? On the contrary, we say that the possibility of his 
seeking election for the sake of the money is a danger for 
the community which needed very serious consideration in 
deciding to pay salaries at all. 

I conjecture that the scruple felt by women about taking 
paid work belongs to a transition state out of which we 
are passing but have not yet quite passed. The idea of 
any woman of the professional classes working for pay 
except in cases of extreme necessity is comparatively new, 
in this country at least. In old days those who did not 
marry were supported by their relations, and only when 
this support failed did they seek paid work, for which they 
had often had no preparation and were not at all well 
qualified. The work was taken as a pis aller — a refuge for 
the destitute. The teaching of girls and young children 
was very apt to fall into the hands of such unqualified 
women because there were so few well qualified. As 
through the growth of public opinion under the influence 
of pioneers like Miss Buss, Miss Beale, Miss Clough, Miss 
Davies, both the dignity of work and the unsatisfactory 
state of girls' education and the need of better qualified 
teachers came to be recognised, girls began to prepare for 
the profession. It inevitably followed that the unfor- 
tunates without qualification for the work though in great 
need of the pay were thrown out in competition. The 
tragedy of this is not yet over, and I think still influences 



14 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 

people's feelings. For many, who would probably seek for 
the best qualified person for any post with which they were 
themselves concerned, the need of the pay overshadows the 
importance of the work when they are thinking of the 
effect of competition apart from any particular post. 

It should be remembered in connection with this 
question that the increased dignity of a profession entered 
for its own sake and not solely for pecuniary gain is 
advantageous to all who are in it. We all know from old 
novels how different from what it is now was the position 
of teachers in the days when for a lady born in comfortable 
circumstances to become one was usually a sign of failure. 

I think therefore most emphatically that there should 
be no difficulty felt about a woman of independent means 
taking paid work if it is the work she most desires or feels 
most fitted for. She will, however, of course thus become 
responsible for the spending of a larger income and will 
have to consider how it should be used. In a way in fact 
by earning she sets free her independent income. 

But I must guard myself from possible misunderstand- 
ing in one respect. It is not, I think, right for a woman 
to compete in the open market and take less than the 
market price, enabled to do so by an allowance from her 
parents. That is not fair competition, and it tempts the 
employer to accept possibly inferior work because he can 
get it cheap. Well-to-do women are sometimes accused 
of acting thus. I am not sure that it really happens, but 
I am sure it would be undesirable that it should. We 
must, however, distinguish between taking paid work for 
less than the standard wage and taking work that is 
unpaid altogether, or from the nature of the case can 
only be partly paid. There is much important unpaid 
work to be done, and a good deal of work of a philanthropic 
kind, which is of course only open to those who have at 
least some means of their own. For those capable of it 
there is also much pioneer work to be done — work which, 
like Florence Nightingale's, alters the world's ideals — 
or which, like Mrs. Garrett Anderson's, makes new open- 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 15 

ings for women, or work like Miss dough's in starting a 
new institution. Pioneer work requires as a rule not only- 
enterprise and ability but capital, at least in the sense 
of power to wait for remuneration, and therefore must be 
done by those with some means of their own, either alone 
or in combination with others. Girls with independent 
means have therefore a larger choice of work than those 
who are limited to immediately remunerative occupations 
and a larger choice carries with it a greater responsibility 
in choosing. 

There is another kind of work for women which must 
not be left out of account or underrated, I mean home 
work apart from marriage. There are many homes which 
have a reasonable claim on a girl's time and energies even 
at some sacrifice of her own future. There are often gaps 
in domestic life which can best be filled by the unmarried 
girls or women of the family — help wanted in the care of 
old people and children and invalids, or in making the 
work of other members of the family go smoothly. This 
kind of work can best be done by women, not only because 
they are generally better adapted to it, but because if any 
sacrifice of a future career is involved, it will neither be 
so certain nor so great in the case of a woman, as it would 
generally be in the case of a man. Only (and this I say 
chiefly to mothers) in encouraging any girl to devote 
herself entirely to home work, let us count the cost and 
compare it with the gain. Do not let us ask her to give 
up the chance of filling or preparing herself to fill a more 
useful place in the world for the sake of employing her — 
as mothers are, I think, sometimes tempted to do — in 
trivial social duties from which she might be spared with 
little loss to anyone. 

A girl's choice of occupations then may be limited by 
distinct calls of duty, as well as by other circumstances; 
but what I am urging is that the talents and opportunities 
— taking talents in the widest sense of the word — which 
nature has given her are a trust to be used conscientiously 
for the benefit of the world, and that consequently she 



16 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 

should have such opportunity as her parents can afford her 
of developing her capabilities. 

This brings us back to the University. The University 
is primarily the place for those whose tastes and capabili- 
ties are of the intellectual or studious order, or who desire 
to take up work for which academic study is a necessary 
preliminary. Those who wish to take up professions for 
which the Universities prepare — in the case of women 
chiefly teaching and medicine — will of course if possible 
go to a University. Those who wish to take up social and 
philanthropic or administrative work in which economic 
problems occur, or in which historical or theological or 
scientific knowledge may be useful, will often find Univer- 
sity education of direct value ; and there are other employ- 
ments for which the Universities offer at least part of the 
preparation required. But we need not restrict ourselves 
to these strictly utilitarian considerations. Speaking 
generally the women who should be encouraged to go to 
Universities are those who, whatever future lies before 
them, have marked intellectual tastes, or are capable of 
developing them, — those who most desire to learn for 
learning's sake. A quotation from a student's letter 
written at the end of her first term not very long ago will 
show the attitude of mind I have in view. " I must repeat 
again," she says, " how I loved my first term and what a 
revelation it has been to me, having inspired me with 
irresistible longings to read, learn and inwardly digest. 
I feel as if the scales had fallen from my eyes at last and 
I see long avenues before me which I may tread and be 
aided in that journey." This girl I may say had a pro- 
fessional aim in view though I believe it was not in her 
case a pecuniary necessity, but she had caught the right 
spirit, the love of knowledge for its own sake and apart 
from its examinational and professional value, and whether 
she practises her profession or not she will have profited 
by her University education. Among women of this sort 
will be found a few who will add to our literary stores, 
and a few who will help in advancing knowledge by 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 17 

reflection, observation, experiment, or research, or — more 
humbly — by rendering accessible the work of others. 
Those who advance knowledge will not probably be many 
— there are not many among men — but the others if they 
have been really interested will not have wasted their time ; 
they will have increased their power of enjoyment, they 
will have received a training which will directly or 
indirectly help them in any work they may undertake, 
and they will form part of the audience — the cultivated, 
interested and intelligent public — without which scientific 
progress and literary production is well nigh impossible. 

It must be borne in mind too, that a good deal of the 
work open to educated women — voluntary as well as paid 
work — cannot be entered on very young, so that there is a 
period of waiting after school is over to be profitably filled 
up. For studious women a University course is likely to 
be a very profitable way of utilising this time even when 
it does not exactly directly prepare for the future work, 
for it develops the powers of the mind, cultivates habits 
of application and thoroughness and enlarges the mental 
outlook — all of which things are valuable in all positions. 

These advantages, however, are limited to the studious. 
Personally I should not recommend a woman who did not 
wish to study to go to a University. It is done sometimes 
in the case of men. Parents sometimes send their sons to 
the Universities, especially the older Universities, know- 
ing, or at least suspecting, that they will not work 
seriously, merely to pass the time happily and under a 
certain amount of supervision while waiting for the 
moment when they can enter a profession. I doubt 
whether this is good for men. I am sure it would not be 
good for women. If a girl wishes to spend her time in 
amusement she had better do so at home under the eye of 
her mother. To take up a life which professes to have 
study as its main object and not to work is futile and 
demoralising and certainly not a good preparation for 
anything. 

But returning to the dual outlook, in the case of women 



18 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 

even granting that any serious preparation for work is a 
useful preliminary to marriage or home life generally, 
there still remain points in relation to marriage to be 
considered. As I said it is in a sense a profession for 
women and part of the business of a married woman is 
usually to manage a house. We may therefore ask 
whether a University education prepares her directly for 
this. Again agreeing that a happy marriage is the 
happiest career for a woman, it is reasonable to ask 
whether University education effects the probability of 
marriage either favourably or unfavourably. 

To this second question I can give no clear answer. I 
think the considerations are so mixed and so impossible 
to estimate that the safest plan is to assume that they 
balance one another and that we need not take account of 
the question at all. I do not think a University education 
disinclin'es a woman for marriage, and I do think a culti- 
vated mind and developed intelligence is likely to make 
her a better companion for a man similarly endowed, and 
a better guide and helper for her children. And I know 
many happy marriages exemplifying this. On the other 
hand any development of her faculties is likely to give a 
woman a higher standard and therefore to some extent to 
makes her less likely to find the man she can care for 
among the men she happens to be thrown with. But this 
of course is one of the ways in which the chance of ill- 
assorted marriages is diminished. Looking at the matter 
again from the point of view of the men — some seem to be 
most attracted by women unlike themselves, and some by 
those of similar tastes ; some like frivolous and doll-like 
women, and imagine they will prefer them as wives; 
others may prefer women developed on the practical 
rather than the intellectual side, but others again will like 
those who can sympathise with or supplement their own 
intellectual tastes. Altogether it seems safest I think to 
let each individual of either sex train the capacities nature 
has endowed him or her with and hope that circumstances 
will bring together those who ought to marry. 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 19 

With regard to the housekeeping question, there are of 
course home arts which every woman who is going to 
manage a house will require, and a University is not 
likely to be the best place in which to learn these. Girls 
with good mothers can probably acquire them at home, 
and some help in this direction is to be had at most good 
schools now while there are technical schools and classes 
where women can take short courses after they know that 
they will have a house to manage. Even after marriage 
there may be time for this, for a young married woman 
whose husband is out all day and who does not do the 
manual work of her house herself is rather apt to have 
too much time on her hands. I do not think therefore 
that all women, irrespective of what the}^ are likely to do 
afterwards, should be urged to spend time in adult life 
on acquiring domestic arts which they may not need, to 
the detriment of training in other things. But anyone 
with special tastes and abilities in this direction may well 
go into the matter thoroughly and make herself a really 
good cook or laundress or dressmaker. With practical 
training of this kind based on a good University education 
in, say, science, a woman, married or unmarried, would 
find many spheres of usefulness open to her, for it is, I 
think, generally admitted that there is considerable room 
for improvement in the average English housekeeping in 
all classes both as to efficiency and economy. University 
women should be able to effect improvement here, for the 
want of a scientific habit of mind and of habits of 
thorough work are often at the bottom of the failure. But 
the Universities — at least the older ones — are not the 
places to go to for direct training in the domestic arts, 
and I hardly think they ought to be, at least at present. 

In what I have said so far there is one aspect of Univer- 
sity education on which I have hardly touched, but on 
which I should like to say a few words before I conclude, 
as it has too important a bearing on our subject to be 
omitted. I mean the aspect of it as it is or should be seen 
from inside by the students who are going through it. 



20 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 

This aspect will not of course be the same for all students, 
and to a great extent it will be for each one very much what 
she makes it for herself. The proverbial difficulty of 
making the individual drink, after being led to the well 
springs of knowledge and intellectual culture, is a diffi- 
culty that the best organisations cannot overcome. But, 
making every allowance for the defects of human beings 
and human institutions, I think that the students who 
have the intellectual tastes and trained faculties which fit 
them for academic study may, if they are not below the 
average in seriousness of aim and steadiness of purpose, 
expect to find in University life a period happy while it 
lasts and a cause of happiness afterwards, both through 
its memories and its results. This happiness springs from 
various sources. One of these, and for many not the least 
valued, is the opportunity it affords for intimate friend- 
ship and social converse, the play of sympathy in work and 
relaxation ; but on this I will not dwell, because, though 
University life is certainly rich in such opportunities, 
they may, happily, be also found elsewhere. 

I will rather dwell on two gifts — one moral and one 
intellectual — which it is, I think, a special privilege of the 
University to bestow on those who will imbibe its spirit 
and surrender themselves to its influence. The moral 
quality is easy to feel, but somewhat difficult to express. 
May I call it the sense of membership of a worthy com- 
munity, with a high and noble function in which every 
member can take part, and at the same time not so vast 
in extent as to reduce the individual to insignificance; a 
community whose larger life seems to grow into and 
expand the narrower life of the individual members, 
gently constraining them to wider interests and more 
strenuous activities, and by self-fortgetfulness which it 
makes easy and natural, relieving the stress of personal 
anxieties without imposing any sacrifice of legitimate self- 
regard. 

The intellectual gift I may describe as the habit of 
reasonable self-dependence in thought and study, to what- 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 21 

ever end thought and study may be directed. I call it 
reasonable self-dependence, partly to contrast it with the 
uncritical acceptance of new ideas — if impressively con- 
veyed and hitting the reader's fancy — to which even 
persons of strong intellectual interests are liable, if they 
are given over to miscellaneous reading without ever 
having made a thorough study of anything and thus learnt 
the kind of labour and care and precision of thought that 
is required to arrive at sound conclusions in any depart- 
ment. But I equally wish to distinguish it from the 
undue self-confidence and sweeping dogmatism sometimes 
seen in persons who have really mastered one subject well, 
but have never, by living and learning among students 
who are studying other subjects, imbibed an adequate 
sense of the limits of their knowledge and its relation to 
other parts of the vast system of modern science and 
learning. This reasonable self-dependence is not, of 
course acquired at once ; it has to come by degrees. Most 
students are during their University course turning from 
school boys or girls into young men or women. At school, 
if they have been conscientious, they have been working 
steadily at their appointed tasks, acquiring the knowledge 
set before them; but their minds must necessarily have 
been mainly receptive, and they have seen largely through 
their teachers' eyes. At the University they will still of 
course, rely on their teachers but from their teachers they 
will gradually learn to rely on themselves. They will 
learn not only to read books, but to use them, to combine 
the observations and reasoning of others with observations 
and reasoning of their own; to know how their little 
knowledge shades off on all sides into ignorance, and in 
what way on any side it may be extended if need arises 
and opportunity is allowed. I do not say that this faculty 
cannot be acquired elsewhere than at a University, but I 
do say that it is learnt far more easily from a group of 
teachers who are thinking for themselves and advancing 
as well as imparting knowledge, than it can be learnt by 
solitary study. The solitary student will sometimes over- 



22 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 

rate himself and sometimes underrate himself ; the former 
error is morally the more objectionable, but the latter is 
intellectually speaking, no less to be avoided. To know 
where one is, intellectually, what one can do and what 
one cannot do, — -this knowledge is of inestimable value for 
life. No institution can be relied on to impart it; but I 
know no institution that can do so much to aid women, as 
well as men, to learn it as a University that is doing its 
duty. 



MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS 



Publications 

OF THE 

University of Manchester. 



EDUCATIONAL 8ERIES 

No. I. CONTINUATION SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND AND 
ELSEWHERE. Their place in the Educational System of 
an Industrial and Commercial State. By Michael E. 
Sadler, M.A., LL.D., Vice-Chancellor of the University of 
Leeds, and late Professor of the History and Administration 
of Education in the University of Manchester. Demy 8vo, 
pp. xxvi. 779. 8s. 6d. net (Publication No. 29. 1907.) 

No. II. THE DEMONSTRATION SCHOOLS RECORD. No. 
I. Being Contributions to the Study of Education from 
the Department of Education in the University of Man- 
chester. By J. J. Findlay, M.A., Ph.D., Sarah Fielden 
Professor of Education. Demy 8vo, pp. viii. 126. is. 6d. 
net. (Publication No. 32, 1908.) 

No. III. THE TEACHING OF HISTORY IN GIRLS' 
SCHOOLS IN NORTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY. A 
Report by Eva Dodge, M. A., Gilchrist Student. Demy8vo, 
pp. x. 149. is. 6d. net (Publication No. 34, 1908.) 

No. IV. THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION IN THE 

UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER, 1890-1911. Demy 8vo, 

146 pp., with 12 plates. is. 6d. net, paper; 2s. 6d. net, 

cloth. (Publication No. 58, 191 1.) 

Published in commemoration of the twenty-first anniversary 

of the Education Department. 

No. V. OUTLINES OF EDUCATION COURSES IN MAN- 
CHESTER UNIVERSITY. Demy 8vo, pp. viii. 190. 3s. 
net. (Publication No. 61. 191 1. 

No. VI. THE STORY OF THE MANCHESTER HIGH 
SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS, 1871-1911. By Sara A. Burstall, 
M. A., Head Mistress, Special Lecturer in Education. Demy 
8vo, pp. xx. 214. with 18 Plates. 5s. net. 

(Publication No. 63, 191 1.) 

No. VII. THE DEMONSTRATION SCHOOLS RECORD, 
No. 2. Edited by J. J. Findlay, M.A., Ph.D., Sarah Fielden 
Professor of Education. [In the Press. 

Published for Manchester University by Sherratt & Hughes 



MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS 

LECTURES 

No. I. GARDEN CITIES (Warburton Lecture). By Ralph 

Neville. K.C. 6d. net. (Lecture No. i. 1905.) 

No. II. THE BANK OF ENGLAND AND THE STATE 
(A Lecture). By Sir Felix Schuster. 6d. net. 

(Lecture No. 2. 1905.) 
No. III. BEARING AND IMPORTANCE OF COMMERCIAL 
TREATIES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. By Sir 
Thomas Barclay. 6d net. (Lecture No. 3, 1906.) 

No. IV. THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE AND THE STUDY 
OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT (A Lecture). By James 
Hope Moulton, M.A., Litt.D. 6d. net. 

(Lecture No. 4, 1906.) 
No. V. THE GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL : ITS 
POWERS AND ITS WORK (A Lecture). By Donald 
Macalister, M.A., M.D., B.Sc, D.C.L., LL.D. 6d. net. 

(Lecture No. 5, 1906.) 
No. VI. THE CONTRASTS IN DANTE (A Lecture). By the 
Hon. William Warren Vernon, M.A. 6d. net. 

(Lecture No. 6, 1906.) 
No. VII. THE PRESERVATION OF PLACES OF INTEREST 
OR BEAUTY (A Lecture). By Sir Robert Hunter. 6d. 
net. (Lecture No. 7, 1907.) 

No. VIII. ON THE LIGHT THROWN BY RECENT INVES- 
TIGATIONS ON ELECTRICITY ON THE RELATION 
BETWEEN MATTER AND ETHER (Adamson Lecture). 
By Sir J. J. Thomson, O.M., D.Sc, F.R.S. 6d. net. 

(Lecture No. 8, 1908.) 
No. IX. HOSPITALS, MEDICAL SCIENCE, AND PUBLIC 
HEALTH (A Lecture). By Sir Clifford Allbutt, K.C.B., 
M.D. (Cantab.) 6d. net. (Lecture No. 9, 1908.) 

No. X. ENGLISH POETRY AND GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 
IN THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (Adamson Lecture). 
By A. C. Bradley, Litt.D. 63. net. 

(Lecture No. 10, 1909.) 
No. XI. THE EVOLUTION OF SURGERY (A Lecture). By 
William Thorburn, F.R.C.S. 6d. net. 

(Lecture No. 11, 1910.) 
No. XII. LEIBNIZ AS A POLITICIAN (Adamson Lecture). 
By A. W. Ward, Litt.D., F.B.A. 6d. net. 

(Lecture No. 12, 191 1.) 
Nos. XIII and XIV. OLD TOWNS AND NEW NEEDS, by 
Paul Waterhouse, M.A., F.R.I.B.A., and THE TOWN 
EXTENSION PLAN, by Raymond Unwin, F.R.I. B. A. 
(Warburton Lectures 1912). 1 volume. Illustrated, is.net. 

(Lectures Nos. 13 and 14, 1912.) 
No. XV. UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN (A 
Lecture). By Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, Litt.D. 6d. net. 

(Lecture No. 15, 1913O 

34 Cross Street, Manchester, and 33 Soho Square, London, W. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



niiiiiiiuiuui' 



019 646 444 fl 



